The Chairman Andy and I, as most of you will know, are keen to hold the first annual Community Open Day at ASPH this summer on Saturday 6th July from 10am-3pm at St Peter’s Hospital.

A chance to open our doors and welcome all generations of the community we care for - as well as Team ASPH families - to come together for a celebratory, fun, engaging and interactive day. As it’s our first one we are focusing on the St Peter’s site and once we have reflected on this event we will plan for next year to hold it across all sites.

We want patients, families, carers, members, local education services, local businesses, stakeholders and partners to feel a part of the hospitals, as we all do. To truly engage, support and collaborate with the Trust on the extensive and exciting ASPH Transformation Programme, improvement projects and development plans for the organisation - including challenges we may face over the coming year and beyond.

It’s a real opportunity to showcase the hospitals as never before - the excellent services, the scope and range of care and treatments we provide, the facilities and innovations striving towards giving patients the very best personalised care and achieving the Together we Care vision. It will also be a great opportunity to promote working here, training and education, research, fundraising, membership, working with our partners and more! We know that these types of events are hugely successful as other London Trusts hold similar annual days.

The Communications Team along with other colleagues from across the Trust have been meeting since the New Year and planning is underway with lots of ideas for talks, tours, interactive demonstrations, stands and activities all highlighting the amazing work we do at ASPH!

Plus a fun element with food, drink, games and entertainment including inviting colleagues from the Police, Fire Brigade, SECAmb and our system partners to talk about the work we are undertaking with them.

Obviously we will still be providing care on that day and have robust plans in place so as to not interfere with business as usual. In the meantime please pop the date in your diaries, I know we can all come together to make this a very special day - personally I can’t wait!